“Don’t know much about history…”
29 May 2012
And you thought awarding the cherished Medal of Freedom to a well-known socialist was the indignity of the day. It might be, but this runs a close second:
“The president referred to ‘Polish death camps’ while awarding a posthumous Medal of Freedom to Polish professor Jan Karski, a hero of the anti-Nazi resistance.”
TOTUS, evidently, “misspoke.”
Here are some headlines from around the web tonight:
Poles Demand Obama Apology For “Polish Death Camps” Comment The remark, which barely drew notice in America, is all over the Polish news today.
Obama ‘Changes History’ by Calling Nazi Deaths Camps ‘Polish Death Camps’…
…Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski also tonight tweeted a link to an Economist story noting that “few things annoy Poles more than being blamed for the crimes committed by the Nazi occupiers of their homeland. For many years, Polish media, diplomats and politicians have tried to persuade outsiders to stop using the phrase ‘Polish death camps’ as a shorthand description of Auschwitz and other exemplars of Nazi brutality and mass murder. Unfortunately this seems to have escaped BaracK Obama’s staff seem not to have noticed this.”…
Smartest Guy in the Room Causes Outrage with Reference to ‘Polish Death Camp’
Good news: Obama alienates Poland by referring to “Polish death camps”
…This isn’t the only dumb, offensive thing that a prominent Democrat has said about Poland this week. The worse news? When I say he’s alienated Poland, I don’t mean he’s alienated a few bloggers in Warsaw or the editorial page of some partisan newspaper. The outrage goes to the very top…
But the blogger who gets the potential impact in the US is the BackyardConservative, from Illinois:
True, he didn’t really adopt this persona as part of his post-modern composite, but his Chicago turf is home to a million or so Polish Americans whom he just slapped in the face..
…53m Larry Sabato
@LarrySabatoHmm. PA has 824,000 Polish-Americans. WI: 500,000. OH: 433,000. Even FL: 430,000…
Remember that missile shield announcement? The one POTUS made on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland? Yeah. President Flexibility is all about symbolism.
